1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:14,240 This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 3,766 from Monday 9 January 2023. 2 00:00:14,240 --> 00:00:19,760 Today's show is entitled, Acer Nitro 5 Laptop Review. 3 00:00:19,760 --> 00:00:23,760 It is hosted by Bookworm and is about 10 minutes long. 4 00:00:23,760 --> 00:00:26,360 It carries a clean flag. 5 00:00:26,360 --> 00:00:28,040 The summary is. 6 00:00:28,040 --> 00:00:41,680 Acer Nitro 5 Laptop Review. 7 00:00:41,680 --> 00:00:44,840 Hello, Hacker Public Radio Bookworm reporting. 8 00:00:44,840 --> 00:00:50,200 Wanted to check in for the first time in a couple of years, been formulating a couple 9 00:00:50,200 --> 00:00:53,680 of things to record and never got around to it until now. 10 00:00:53,680 --> 00:00:54,680 I apologize. 11 00:00:54,680 --> 00:00:57,400 I've promised to make up the difference. 12 00:00:57,400 --> 00:01:03,920 So, today's recording is a review of my brand new laptop. 13 00:01:03,920 --> 00:01:12,060 I've been using an ASUS I3 laptop for many years and it finally decided to give up the 14 00:01:12,060 --> 00:01:13,060 ghost. 15 00:01:13,060 --> 00:01:18,800 So, I found myself having been researching laptops and all of a sudden in desperate need 16 00:01:18,800 --> 00:01:21,000 of a new laptop. 17 00:01:21,000 --> 00:01:24,080 So, well, I went into a best buy. 18 00:01:24,080 --> 00:01:31,320 I know that was mistake, I apologize, I hate best buy, but I was out of town away from 19 00:01:31,320 --> 00:01:35,360 home and I desperately needed something. 20 00:01:35,360 --> 00:01:43,000 So, I go into best buy and I ask the sales monkey, monkey, what can you do me for in a good 21 00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:44,000 laptop? 22 00:01:44,000 --> 00:01:48,720 And, of course, she starts showing me all the generic garbage, the HPs and the Dells. 23 00:01:48,720 --> 00:01:53,680 Now, some Dells and some HPs are very good laptops and I don't begrudge them that 24 00:01:53,680 --> 00:01:59,360 Dells and HP now are selling Linux laptops, but not in retail stores like Best Buy. 25 00:01:59,360 --> 00:02:04,900 So, I'm like, well, I do want to record, I do want to play games, I do want to do a 26 00:02:04,900 --> 00:02:10,520 couple other things on it, so let's see what you got for that. 27 00:02:10,520 --> 00:02:15,280 So, he starts showing me a couple of 15 inch laptops and I'm like, no, I want something 28 00:02:15,280 --> 00:02:23,640 just a little larger, I like the additional retail or the additional landscape on 29 00:02:23,640 --> 00:02:24,640 my screen. 30 00:02:24,640 --> 00:02:29,920 So, he's like, well, we've got these 17s, and he said this one's a particularly nice one 31 00:02:29,920 --> 00:02:32,040 and it's on sale right now. 32 00:02:32,040 --> 00:02:45,520 It's an Acer Nitro 5, it comes with a 500 gig solid state drive, an M2 SATA, an extremely narrow 33 00:02:45,520 --> 00:03:02,200 bezel, of course, even that Wi-Fi 6 compatible full HDMI port and DTX audio, core i5, 10th 34 00:03:02,200 --> 00:03:11,880 gen processor, and the discrete Nvidia GeForce GTX GPU. 35 00:03:11,880 --> 00:03:16,840 After looking up some more of the specs online, has two additional spots, one for an SSD 36 00:03:16,840 --> 00:03:23,720 and one for hard drive, so I want to head and purchase the laptop. 37 00:03:23,720 --> 00:03:32,480 $780, $800 and change out the door, my credit card cried for a couple of days after 38 00:03:32,480 --> 00:03:38,800 that one, but we'll get that taken care of and do time. 39 00:03:38,800 --> 00:03:47,080 So I get home and I start scavenging pieces and parts out of my old, dearly departed I3, 40 00:03:47,080 --> 00:03:56,120 including a 500 gig SSD, and I had a 120 gig M2 SATA laying around, and so I put those 41 00:03:56,120 --> 00:04:01,520 in the Nitro 5 and they went in and take 12 screws out of the bottom very easily, bottom 42 00:04:01,520 --> 00:04:05,720 just pops right off, you will need a guitar pick or some other sort of separator to get 43 00:04:05,720 --> 00:04:11,880 the bottom frame to separate, but it came off very easily. 44 00:04:11,880 --> 00:04:18,400 The two new drives slotted in perfectly, so now I have 120 gig shared drive between my windows 45 00:04:18,400 --> 00:04:32,120 and Linux installs, and I have 2 500 gig 1M2 and 1 SSD for my operating systems. 46 00:04:32,120 --> 00:04:36,600 So the next step was obviously to get Linux going. 47 00:04:36,600 --> 00:04:43,240 So I went to my good old stand by Katie Eneon, ran the installer. 48 00:04:43,240 --> 00:04:52,320 The weird thing was during the install, it did not see the windows hard drive at all, typically 49 00:04:52,320 --> 00:05:01,000 in a dual boot situation, you will have to install grub in the root or in the boot drive 50 00:05:01,000 --> 00:05:05,120 so that you can select what operating system you want at boot time. 51 00:05:05,120 --> 00:05:09,520 It didn't see it, it didn't even see the hard drive, it didn't even give it as an option. 52 00:05:09,520 --> 00:05:16,160 So all the other two just fine, so I went ahead and installed it onto the 500 gig hard 53 00:05:16,160 --> 00:05:25,520 drive, reboot the laptop, nothing right into windows, no grub menu, no grub options, nothing. 54 00:05:25,520 --> 00:05:32,660 So reboot the laptop, go back into the BIOS, make sure that the hot keys enabled 55 00:05:32,660 --> 00:05:36,720 a boot time to select the boot device. 56 00:05:36,720 --> 00:05:42,800 On this laptop it's the S12 button, so a reboot again starts spamming F12, come up to 57 00:05:42,800 --> 00:05:50,840 a boot menu, the only option is Windows Boot Partitions, which is a little curious because 58 00:05:50,840 --> 00:05:54,040 I've just installed Katie Eneon. 59 00:05:54,040 --> 00:05:59,400 So I'm like, well, maybe something didn't go in properly, let's try it again. 60 00:05:59,400 --> 00:06:10,880 So reboot, back to my Katie Eneon boot USB drive, reinstalled Katie Eneon, same thing, 61 00:06:10,880 --> 00:06:20,680 Lather Rinsor P, did not see it under the boot menu or the boot options at all, sorry, 62 00:06:20,680 --> 00:06:23,160 let's drop back in punt. 63 00:06:23,160 --> 00:06:29,440 Right up, downloaded the latest version of Fedora, and I know that it uses the Nome desktop 64 00:06:29,440 --> 00:06:33,760 by default, but I'll just have to deal with it for a few minutes until I can get a Katie 65 00:06:33,760 --> 00:06:36,720 Eneon desktop or a plasma desktop. 66 00:06:36,720 --> 00:06:47,960 So installed Fedora, 33, when I'll just as easy as you please. 67 00:06:47,960 --> 00:06:53,120 But again, once I reboot it after the installation of the operating system, no grub. 68 00:06:53,120 --> 00:07:02,320 The installer didn't even see the Windows hard drive at all, curiouser and curiouser. 69 00:07:02,320 --> 00:07:07,320 So reboot again, spam the F12 to get the boot drive options. 70 00:07:07,320 --> 00:07:15,680 I see there's a Linux boot option, so I select it, Fedora came up, no problem at all. 71 00:07:15,680 --> 00:07:23,920 I haven't dug any further to see why the Linux aren't seeing the Windows drive part drive 72 00:07:23,920 --> 00:07:25,760 and drive partitions at all. 73 00:07:25,760 --> 00:07:33,560 I suspect it has something to do with the UEFI settings, and I'm not going to change those. 74 00:07:33,560 --> 00:07:38,360 I'm working in Linux in Fedora, and I have no problems with that. 75 00:07:38,360 --> 00:07:43,320 I've got my Katie E desktop, and I'm happy. 76 00:07:43,320 --> 00:07:45,880 But other than that, it's been a very good laptop. 77 00:07:45,880 --> 00:07:52,120 I do plan on at some point probably upgrading the default 8 gigs of RAM to 16, and according 78 00:07:52,120 --> 00:07:57,160 to manufacturer's spec, it will take up to 32 gigs of RAM. 79 00:07:57,160 --> 00:08:03,080 So I think no matter what, giant stompy robot game I want to play, this should be sufficient 80 00:08:03,080 --> 00:08:06,320 for me for quite some time. 81 00:08:06,320 --> 00:08:12,920 So if you're in the market for a laptop, and you've got about $800, I really recommend 82 00:08:12,920 --> 00:08:13,920 this one. 83 00:08:13,920 --> 00:08:18,840 Performance wise, it's been very good, no qualms, no issues. 84 00:08:18,840 --> 00:08:24,600 The only minor issue I have is in the construction. 85 00:08:24,600 --> 00:08:30,200 The entire case and frame of the laptop is plastic. 86 00:08:30,200 --> 00:08:38,120 There's no metal reinforcing except for a frame inside that their motherboard is fixed to. 87 00:08:38,120 --> 00:08:42,240 So overall, it could be a little sturdier. 88 00:08:42,240 --> 00:08:46,880 But it's not so flexible that you can bend it with your hands. 89 00:08:46,880 --> 00:08:49,400 It doesn't bend, it doesn't flex. 90 00:08:49,400 --> 00:08:56,120 So it's a very sturdy laptop without any metal components in the frame. 91 00:08:56,120 --> 00:09:01,200 But like I said, that's all I've got for now. 92 00:09:01,200 --> 00:09:06,720 I'm happy with this laptop, and if you need one, I hope you would be too. 93 00:09:06,720 --> 00:09:08,920 Thanks again, and have a happy day. 94 00:09:08,920 --> 00:09:14,320 Hello again, HPR users, bookworm again, just wanted to give you a brief update on the status 95 00:09:14,320 --> 00:09:15,800 of that laptop. 96 00:09:15,800 --> 00:09:21,600 It's been about two years since that audio was recorded, and I've still got that laptop, 97 00:09:21,600 --> 00:09:27,400 it's still a great little device I've traveled extensively with it at this point. 98 00:09:27,400 --> 00:09:32,040 Did recommend one to a friend within six months after I got mine, when they received 99 00:09:32,040 --> 00:09:36,960 theirs, when booting into Windows for the first time, it went into an infinite boot loop. 100 00:09:36,960 --> 00:09:41,840 They were able to get that issue resolved with tech support, but within a week, they're 101 00:09:41,840 --> 00:09:46,840 developed an issue with the graphics card and the graphics drivers, and it would just crash 102 00:09:46,840 --> 00:09:48,760 every 30 minutes or so. 103 00:09:48,760 --> 00:09:53,360 So after that many troubles within 30 days, they decided to return it. 104 00:09:53,360 --> 00:09:57,560 Again, I've had no problems with mine, booting into Windows or Linux, but I still do have 105 00:09:57,560 --> 00:10:03,160 to use the F12 hot key in order to be able to select the operating system at boot time. 106 00:10:03,160 --> 00:10:08,480 But I've still like mine, they moved on to something else, so it's just something to keep 107 00:10:08,480 --> 00:10:11,480 in mind when picking a laptop. 108 00:10:11,480 --> 00:10:16,120 Also of note, since it has been two years, the price has dropped pretty dramatically, 109 00:10:16,120 --> 00:10:22,960 I think by about $250, so at this point it's going into the budget laptop range, and 110 00:10:22,960 --> 00:10:26,520 so keep that in mind in your options as well. 111 00:10:26,520 --> 00:10:28,200 Thank you, and have a good day. 112 00:10:28,200 --> 00:10:36,560 You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at HackerPublicRadio.org. 113 00:10:36,560 --> 00:10:41,960 Today's show was contributed by a HBR this night like yourself, if you ever thought of 114 00:10:41,960 --> 00:10:48,280 recording podcast, click on our contributally to find out how easy it means. 115 00:10:48,280 --> 00:10:55,240 Hosting for HBR has been kindly provided by an onsthost.com, the internet archive and our 116 00:10:55,240 --> 00:11:01,800 sing.net. 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